The present invention relates to vehicle safety systems for motorists. In particular the present invention relates to a safety system for detecting operating conditions of an associated vehicle and for emitting corresponding visual and/or audible warning signals from portable locations.
Operation of motor vehicles, such as automobiles, trucks, personal motor vehicles, and motor boats, constantly places motorists at potential risk of property damages, injuries, and even fatalities. Due to the speed and power of motor vehicles, many dangerous situations exist that can result in collisions. For example, operators of personal motor vehicles, such as motorcycles, have inherent safety concerns normally not associated with other vehicles. In addition to the common hazards of minimal collision protection, a danger that is becoming more common with newer motorcycles is that, even without braking, they can decelerate very rapidly, almost as fast as braking itself. Recent models of motorcycles can decelerate as much as three times as fast as a car. This presents a dangerous situation because the brakes are not used. When braking, a motorcycle's tail brake light will illuminate to warn following traffic that the motorcycle is braking. However, if a motorcycle rapidly decelerates without braking, the brake light will not illuminate to warn others that the motorcycle is slowing down. Therefore, following traffic are not provided adequate warning of the deceleration.
Motorists are also placed in dangerous situations when they leave their vehicles at night. If a motorist pulls to the side of a road at night and leaves his or her motorcycle on the side of the road, traffic will only be able to see the lights of the motorcycle. The motorist will not be visible if he or she is too far from the lights of the motorcycle. Oncoming traffic will have little or no warning of the location of the motorist, and therefore, could accidentally hit the motorist.
Another hazardous condition occurs with the use of towed trailers. Trailers typically obstruct the view of the tail lights of the towing motor vehicles, hindering their view by following traffic. If a towing motor vehicle brakes or activates a turn signal with obstructed tail lights, the following traffic may not be able to observe the action. This could result in dangerous and expensive collisions. Moreover, not all trailers include built-in tail lights that directly hook into the towing vehicles tail light system via wire cables. As such, following traffic have little or no warning when the towing vehicle suddenly slows down or prepares to turn.
Additionally, motor boats do not have braking systems for slowing down. Correspondingly, motor boats do not have brake lights to warn following boaters if the motor boat is slowing down. If a motor boat rapidly decelerates, following boaters will have little warning to avoid potentially dangerous and expensive collisions.
There is a continuing need for safety devices that wain other motorists of potentially hazardous situations to avoid vehicular collisions. With the number of motorists increasing annually, greater means of providing adequate warnings are required.